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Topic: Welp. I am on a ROLL!! First I banged up the Speed6, now............ (Read 1309 times)

bottomed out going over a large speed bump/pedestrian crossing launch ramp and popped a nice sized hole in the oil pan. I wasn't trying to go Dukes of Hazard or anything.

I'm driving along, la-la-la, hit the frontside of the bump with no problem. But on the downside the car hit hard and bounced like it had been dropped from about three feet up. Maybe 500 feet after that the oil light came on so I shut 'er down and pulled to the side. I had the car towed to Autobahn so I'll find out tomorrow the full extent of the damage.

I did not see any damage to the shocks, but it was dark and I was focused on the gaping hole in the oil pan... Hopefully that is the only damage. I came off the hump faster than I should have, but it is not exactly built for cars to drive over! The numerous marks on the pavement right where I hit indicate this is a very common spot to bottom out.

I think i figured out what happened. Because of the width of the speed bump, the front suspension had time to fully compress when it was on top. By the time it had fully uncompressed, the wheels were off the bump and the drop was about 2x harder than it would have been normally. Basically the wheels rolled off bump while the car was at its highest point. Result: hard landing and a busted oil pan.

In the words of Captain Zapp Brannigan: "Damn you gravity! You win again!"